Joined: 4/16/2014(UTC)Posts: 467Location: Madison, Wisconsin during the week and Lincolnshire, Illinois on weekends.

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After reading Bill Schafer's story about battling the tall grass to get to his stream, I thought it might be a good time to discuss fishing tactics. Many or most of these would be the same if your fly fishing or spin fishing.

First off, I am not able to get up to the area to fish all that often. I make it to Vernon County maybe once a month, and maybe my local Madison-area streams once every two weeks. The streams are different, although share a lot of similarities.

Because I'm not local and don't get as many fishing hours as many, I have to plan what I'm going to do pretty carefully. I have about a half-dozen go-to spots where I know I can catch fish. I could go to those streams every time I come up to VC and be successful, but I'd miss out on a lot of other streams. So, I make it my rule to try to hit 4 streams each weekend, with one of them being one of my go-to streams, and the other three new streams (or new areas on streams I know). This helps me widen my horizons. During TrapFest, I fished streams farther east than I've previously fished, with some good results, and some really pretty streams. I can't add them to my go-to list yet, but there is a ton more exploration to be done on them. I have never fished north of I-90, and there's a whole lot of Wisconsin above that highway.

The next thing I need to do is to expand my fly selection. Conservative by nature, if you saw me on the stream at any given moment and were to bet what fly I had on the end of my line, a pink squirrel would usually win that bet. However, I just started experimenting with some larger streamers, in colors I'd never have tried had they not been recommended by people whose fishing ability I respect. The results were great, with several large fish caught; 3 of them were in my top ten in size, and I probably lost one that would have been my biggest fish. Now I have to commit myself to using these streamers, should the conditions warrant them. I've also been using soft hackles more often when I see fish rising. I do okay on dries and other nymphs, but have had zero luck with midge nymphs and so they remain unused in my fly box.

I will also commit myself to doing some night fishing in rivers that I can walk alongside without falling in. i've only moused once but had some luck, so I need to spend an evening doing that.

The tough part, as summer wears on, is battling the weeds and keeping well away from wild parsnip. It will also mean getting on the stream at first light, fishing until maybe 9, then coming back again in late afternoon. Fish can be caught in the middle of a summer day, but I think it's a low-percentage thing. If I can find areas that are always shaded, I'll fish there. The good part of summer is that terrestrials are all around and of course trout love them.

So that's my summer plans in a nutshell. I won't deny I like fishing winter and spring better, though. I have been fly fishing a long time, and fishing even longer, but I have never fished enough hours per year to gain a critical mass of knowledge. Back West, it was the same way salmon fishing. The first few years, I had little luck, but by the time I moved to the Midwest, I expected to catch a limit of salmon every time I went fishing for them, because I know where to go, what gear to use, what time to fish them, etc. That took a decade.

I look to fish mature wood canopied steams. Typically in the top third of the stream. This helps you get away from weeds and the wading is easy as it's usually shallow and rocky. Easy to wet wade in these spots as well

I love reading through this stuff as part of the fun of hobbies is finding what works for next time.

I go in the opposite direction though and work on simplifying the situation and carry less stuff.

Got my fly box narrowed down to a thin 6-compartment plastic box that was originally a beadhead box. Fits in my shirt pocket and is very lightweight, able to fit plenty of ugly buggish looking flies and others.

The lock and key section at fleet farm has small zingers for $2 or so. Clip one on your other front pocket, snap it on the forceps, and then clamp the forceps on your pocket flap or if your shirt has one of those pen slots on the left front pocket, stick it in there.

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